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    U.S. to Review Social Media Posts of Student and Scholar Visa Applicants

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    The State Department is restarting the processing of visa applications from students and visiting scholars, but is screening for “hostility” toward the United States.The State Department plans to review the social media accounts of foreign citizens who apply for student and visiting scholar visas as it resumes processing those applications. Applicants will be screened for perceived “hostility” toward the United States, and they will be asked to make their social media accounts “public” for the review, State Department officials said on Wednesday.All applications for F, M and J nonimmigrant visas, which are for scholarly exchanges and research, will be reviewed, the officials said.Consular officers at missions overseas are being told to look for “any indications of hostility toward the citizens, culture, government, institutions or founding principles of the United States.” The State Department did not provide further details on how officers would define that criteria. The agency issued the guidelines after halting the processing of student and visiting scholar visas for nearly a month.The new policy appears to be the latest prong in the Trump administration’s broad assault on universities, which is focused on trying to tamp down liberal thought at the institutions. Some of President Trump’s aides say American universities need to embrace more conservative ideas and people. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S. Was Not Involved in Israeli Strikes on Iran, Rubio Says

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      President Trump has said he would like to negotiate a deal with Tehran over its nuclear program but had also acknowledged that Israel might attack Iran first.Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that the United States had no involvement in Israel’s unilateral strikes on Iran but had been told that Israel considered the attack necessary for its self-defense.President Trump, who has been pushing for a deal with Iran on its nuclear program, was hosting the annual White House picnic on Thursday evening when reports of the strikes emerged from Tehran.Despite his expressed hopes for a diplomatic breakthrough, Mr. Trump had also acknowledged on Thursday that Israel might attack first.In a statement, Mr. Rubio said: “We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region. Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary for its self-defense.” It was not immediately clear how much detail about the strike Israel had provided the United States, its main ally, and how far in advance.Despite the Trump administration distancing itself from the attacks, its statements and precautionary measures this week have indicated the concern that Iran’s retaliation, which is expected to be swift, could also include American targets in the Middle East.“Let me be clear: Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel,” Mr Rubio said.On Wednesday, the United States withdrew diplomats from Iraq, Iran’s neighbor to the west, and authorized the voluntary departure of the family members of U.S. military personnel from the Middle East. The U.S. military has a large fleet of warplanes, naval vessels and thousands of troops stationed at its bases in the region, including in Qatar and Bahrain, just around 150 miles across the gulf from Iran.Iran’s defense minister said this week that if nuclear talks failed and a conflict arose with the United States, his country’s military would target all American bases in the region.It was unclear what impact Israel’s strikes would have on the ongoing negotiations between the Trump administration and Iran, or on Mr. Trump’s relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. The president had spoken with the Israeli leader on Monday but did not give any details about the conversation.In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has said he has urged Israel to hold off on military strikes while the negotiations were taking place. Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, was expected to meet Iran’s foreign minister in Oman on Sunday for the next round of talks.Around the time Israel began to strike Iran, Mr. Trump said he remained committed to a diplomatic resolution.“My entire Administration has been directed to negotiate with Iran,” he posted on social media around 5 p.m. Eastern time. “They could be a Great Country, but they first must completely give up hopes of obtaining a Nuclear Weapon.” More

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      American Charged With Trying to Firebomb Embassy Building in Tel Aviv

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      Joseph Neumeyer, 28, is also accused of threatening President Trump. He appeared in federal court in Brooklyn on Sunday.An American citizen was charged with trying to firebomb a U.S. Embassy office in Tel Aviv, after he approached the building with Molotov cocktails and had threatened to kill President Trump in a series of social media posts, federal prosecutors said on Sunday.The man, Joseph Neumeyer, 28, of Colorado, was deported to the United States on Saturday and appeared Sunday in Federal District Court in Brooklyn before Magistrate Judge Peggy Kuo. He is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center without bail.Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement that Mr. Neumeyer had been charged with “planning a devastating attack targeting our embassy in Israel, threatening death to Americans and President Trump’s life.”A lawyer for Mr. Neumeyer, Jeff Dahlberg of the Federal Defenders of New York, declined to comment.Mr. Neumeyer’s arrest comes at a time of unease for embassy officials in Israel and the United States. Last week, two Israeli Embassy employees were shot and killed outside the Jewish Museum in Washington. A man, Elias Rodriguez, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the shooting; he said he “did it for Palestine,” according to an F.B.I. affidavit.Mr. Neumeyer, a dual citizen of the United States and Germany, began making a series of disturbing posts on his Facebook account in late March, according to a criminal complaint filed in the Eastern District of New York.“We are killing Trump and Musk now,” read one post from March 22, in an apparent reference to Elon Musk, the tech billionaire and adviser to Mr. Trump. It was followed by subsequent posts that month that wished death upon Mr. Trump.Mr. Neumeyer left the United States in February and arrived in Israel on April 23, prosecutors said. On May 19, Mr. Neumeyer wrote on Facebook, “Join me this afternoon in Tel Aviv — we are burning down the US embassy.”The U.S. embassy was moved to Jerusalem in 2018, but the United States maintains a branch office in Tel Aviv.That afternoon, according to prosecutors, Mr. Neumeyer approached the employee entrance of the Tel Aviv office carrying a dark backpack. He spat at a guard, who then tapped on Mr. Neumeyer’s shoulder and tried to apprehend him.In trying to stop Mr. Neumeyer from fleeing, the guard grabbed his backpack and discovered a bottle with a black cloth jutting out, which the guard understood to be a Molotov cocktail bottle after smelling an odor of “pure” alcohol, prosecutors said.Mr. Neumeyer got away but was later arrested by Israeli police officers at his hotel, where he said his backpack had Molotov cocktail bottles with vodka inside. According to prosecutors, Mr. Neumeyer’s backpack contained three bottles with ethanol.“Death to America. Death to the West,” read one of Mr. Neumeyer’s final posts on May 19, according to prosecutors. More

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      Denmark Outraged by Report of Increased Spying in Greenland

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      Officials summoned the American ambassador to express its displeasure after the Trump Administration was said be ratcheting up surveillance.The Danish government has summoned the American ambassador and threatened to shut down a U.S. consulate in Greenland after a report that the Trump administration was escalating its spying on the island.“It’s deeply concerning if the U.S. is indeed trying to gather intelligence in Denmark and Greenland, especially if the aim is to drive wedges between us,” Lars Lokke Rasmussen, the Danish foreign minister, told reporters on Wednesday after the Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration had ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to step up their surveillance. “We don’t spy on friends.”Greenland is an overseas territory of Denmark and President Trump has talked about acquiring the Arctic island since his first term in office. In a recent interview with NBC News, Mr. Trump reiterated that the United States “needs” Greenland for national security purposes — and refused to rule out the use of military force to obtain it.“I’m not saying I’m going to do it, but I don’t rule out anything,” he said. He promised that Greenland’s 56,000 residents would be “taken care of and cherished.”Greenlanders, however, are not buying it. A recent opinion poll showed that the vast majority did not want to join the United States. A visit in March by Vice President JD Vance and his wife seemed to backfire and turned even more Greenlanders off.Protesters outside of the U.S. embassy in Copenhagen in March. President Trump has spoke of wanting to acquire Greenland since his first term in office. Nils Meilvang/Ritzau Scanpix Foto, via Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Dinner That Helped Save Europe

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      In 1979, during John Paul II’s first visit to the United States as pope, he met with President Jimmy Carter at the White House. Shortly after that, he invited Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s national security adviser, to dinner at the Vatican Embassy in Washington. Along with world affairs, Carter wanted to discuss declining morals with the recently elected pope, but Brzezinski had more practical subjects in mind.For the pontiff and the adviser, their mutual obsession was the Soviet Union. Over a simple meal at the Apostolic Nunciature of the Holy See, they explored how they could together weaken Moscow’s grip over its captive nations. Brzezinski was stunned by the pope’s geopolitical knowledge. He joked that Carter was more like a religious leader while the pope seemed more like a world statesman. The vicar of Christ affirmed the quip with a belly laugh, Brzezinski noted in his personal diary, to which I acquired exclusive access.From that dinner onward, the two Polish-born figures — one the first non-Italian pope in 455 years, the other America’s first (and to date, probably the only) Polish-speaking grand strategist — became intimate allies.Their serendipitous relationship proved critical in late 1980 in dissuading the Soviets from invading Poland, where the Solidarity movement had just emerged as a serious challenge to the Communist government. It was a partnership sustained by a running dialogue conducted during Brzezinski’s visits to the Vatican, in long handwritten correspondence and over the phone. His White House speed dial had P for “pope.”John Paul’s relationship with Brzezinski is a vivid example of how diplomacy works when there is mutual trust. Good chemistry is rare but extremely productive. Sustained dialogue with both friends and adversaries in today’s volatile world is, if anything, even more critical. The ability at a tense moment to pick up the phone and know that you can trust the person on the other end is the fruit of constant gardening.Yet it is increasingly hard to find the time. Technology means that presidential envoys are always within White House reach to respond to the cascade of competing demands. The world is also a more complex place than it was 40 years ago, and U.S. diplomats have rarely been held in lower regard at home. Twenty-four-hour media scrutiny also makes secrecy far harder. Henry Kissinger’s covert visit to Beijing in 1971 to pave the way for U.S. rapprochement with Mao Zedong’s China is hard to imagine today.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Frank G. Wisner, Diplomat With Impact on Foreign Policy, Dies at 86

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      He headed U.S. embassies around the world and relished the role, bringing a gregarious style to promoting American interests. But he clashed with the Obama White House.Frank G. Wisner II, a veteran American diplomat, Washington insider and foreign affairs specialist who relished the prestige of ambassadorial life as much as the back-channel cajoling and arm-twisting of less public influence, died on Monday at his home in Mill Neck, N.Y., on Long Island. He was 86.His son, David, said the cause was complications of lung cancer.Over decades as a member of the policy elite, Mr. Wisner headed embassies in Zambia, Egypt, the Philippines and India, held high office under both Republican and Democratic administrations and was linked to initiatives that wrought change in regions as disparate as southern Africa and the Balkans.He rose to prominence at a time when the Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union turned an emergent world of newly-independent states into a checkerboard of competition between Washington and Moscow and their various surrogates.Gregarious and often expansive, Mr. Wisner brought his own style to the task of promoting America’s vision. In Cairo, for instance, where he was ambassador from 1986 to 1991, he once invited a reporter along to join him for an evening of diplomacy and socializing, crisscrossing the city in an armored Mercedes-Benz followed by a chase car of bodyguards as he was feted in a series of formal receptions.The guest list at his dinner parties offered a Who’s Who of the elite. And as the representative of Egypt’s most influential superpower ally, his interlocutors sometimes treated him like an affable viceroy.Once, Mr. Wisner borrowed a friend’s apartment in Cairo to conduct unpublicized talks with exiled members of the Soviet-backed armed wing of Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress, at a time when official contact with such figures was unusual.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Appointees Fire 2,000 U.S.A.I.D. Employees and Put Others Worldwide on Leave

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      Trump administration appointees in charge of the U.S. Agency for International Development sent employees an email on Sunday afternoon saying that they were firing 2,000 workers and putting up to thousands of foreign service officers and other direct hires around the world on paid leave starting that night.The only exceptions to the leave would be people working on “mission-critical programs,” as well as “core leadership” and employees supporting “specially designated programs,” according to a copy of the email obtained by The New York Times.The email said appointees running U.S.A.I.D. were firing 2,000 employees based in the United States using a mechanism called “reduction in force.” The mass firings are part of a series of layoffs of agency employees by the Trump administration during a broad effort to halt almost all U.S. foreign aid using a blanket freeze.The moves came after a judge ruled on Friday that the Trump administration could proceed with plans to lay off or put on paid leave many agency employees and close down operations overseas, which means forcing employees based abroad to come back to the United States. Some of those employees say they expect to be fired once they return home.The judge, Carl J. Nichols of the Federal District Court in Washington, had been reviewing a lawsuit that aimed to block Trump administration officials from enacting the layoffs at the aid agency, putting people on paid leave and compelling overseas employees to quickly return home.Since late January, Pete Marocco, a State Department political appointee who was a divisive figure in the first Trump administration, has overseen the dismantling of the aid agency, working alongside Elon Musk, the tech billionaire adviser to President Trump who has posted dark conspiracy theories about U.S.A.I.D.Early this month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he was the new acting administrator of the agency and was appointing Mr. Marocco as his deputy.The email on Sunday said employees taking the “voluntary” route to returning from overseas soon would have their travel paid for by the agency.Last week, the appointees running the agency fired about 400 employees who work as contractors on urgent humanitarian assistance. That action added to an understanding among many employees that Mr. Rubio does not actually support such programs.Late last month, Mr. Rubio promised that “lifesaving humanitarian assistance” programs could continue. But almost no programs have been able to operate because the agency’s payment system does not function, meaning partner groups cannot get funds.Mr. Rubio has said some foreign aid will continue after a 90-day review process, but neither he nor Mr. Marocco, who oversees foreign aid at the State Department, have publicly explained the process, if there is one. More

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      New Trump Executive Order Calls for ‘Reform’ to the U.S. Diplomatic Corps

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      President Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday calling for “reform” to the Foreign Service, America’s corps of professional diplomats, “to ensure faithful and effective implementation” of his foreign policy agenda.It was the latest of several recent moves by Mr. Trump to assert greater control over the federal work force, which the president largely views with a blend of suspicion and hostility. Mr. Trump and his allies believe that left-leaning bureaucrats will work to thwart his agenda and that he should have far more power than past presidents to install proven loyalists throughout the government.To that end, Mr. Trump’s order, titled “One Voice for America’s Foreign Relations,” directs the secretary of state to “implement reforms in recruiting, performance, evaluation and retention standards.” It also directs officials to “revise or replace the Foreign Affairs Manual,” along with “any handbooks, procedures or guidance” governing diplomacy.The executive order also makes explicit the price of defying Mr. Trump’s orders. “Failure to faithfully implement the president’s policy is grounds for professional discipline, including separation,” it says.All foreign policy arms of the government, it adds, must devise “an effective and efficient means” of ensuring that the president’s orders are followed.The executive order would appear to challenge basic and longstanding principles of the Foreign Service: that career diplomats should be hired based on their qualifications and expertise, not their political views, and that dissent should be welcomed and not punished.As part of the federal civil service, professional diplomats enjoy special job protections against partisanship and political retribution. Mr. Trump seems intent on weakening those protections.In an initial statement, the American Foreign Service Association, which represents professional diplomats, said it was still assessing the impact of the order. But the group noted that its members posted around the world “carry out the foreign policy initiatives of the president, regardless of party.”“We hope that any administration would value the expertise and knowledge of the Foreign Service, including its ability to provide advice on foreign policy matters,” the statement said, adding that the group would “always defend the integrity and nonpolitical nature of the Foreign Service so that our members can continue to serve the American people.”Separately, State Department officials are grappling with more proposed cuts to personnel. Some ambassadors have been told this week to present lists of cuts of 10 to 20 percent of employees who are local citizens, said a person briefed on the demands, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retribution.Edward Wong More

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      Trump Names Charles Kushner as Pick for Ambassador to France

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      The announcement elevated Mr. Kushner, the father of President Donald J. Trump’s son-in-law and the recipient of a presidential pardon at the end of Mr. Trump’s first term.President-elect Donald J. Trump announced on Saturday that he would name Charles Kushner, the wealthy real estate executive and father of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to serve as ambassador to France, handing one of his earliest and most high-profile ambassador appointments to a close family associate.The announcement was the latest step in a long-running exchange of political support between the two men. Mr. Kushner received a pardon from Mr. Trump in the final days of his first term for a variety of violations and then emerged as a major donor to Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign.“I am pleased to nominate Charles Kushner, of New Jersey, to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to France,” Mr. Trump wrote in a social media post announcing his choice. “He is a tremendous business leader, philanthropist, & dealmaker, who will be a strong advocate representing our Country & its interests.”Mr. Kushner, 70, pleaded guilty in 2004 to 16 counts of tax evasion, a single count of retaliating against a federal witness and one of lying to the Federal Election Commission in a case that became a lasting source of embarrassment for the family. As part of the plea, Mr. Kushner admitted to hiring a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, a witness in a federal campaign finance investigation, and sending a videotape of the encounter to his sister.Mr. Trump granted Mr. Kushner clemency as part of a wave of 26 pardons he issued with roughly a month left in his first term, along with other close associates including Paul Manafort, his 2016 campaign chairman, and Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime ally and informal adviser.In addition to securing a pardon for himself, Mr. Kushner was instrumental in helping others seeking clemency elevate their cases, relying on his son as a bridge to help get applications in front of Mr. Trump.The case against Mr. Kushner was prosecuted by Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who was then a U.S. attorney. Mr. Christie has since become a vocal critic of Mr. Trump’s and continued to describe Mr. Kushner’s transgressions as severe.Mr. Kushner served two years in prison before his release in 2006.While widely seen as one of the most prized ambassador positions, the role Mr. Kushner will be nominated for could be complicated by the at times standoffish position Mr. Trump took toward President Emmanuel Macron of France during his first term.As president, Mr. Trump also expressed support for Mr. Macron’s far-right challenger in the 2017 French presidential election, Marine Le Pen, whose hard-line stance against immigration Mr. Trump praised.Mr. Macron, who has been a staunch supporter of both the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Ukraine, will serve until mid-2027. Mr. Trump has repeatedly questioned the value of Western support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion, and has also publicly sparred with Mr. Macron over other contentious policy disagreements, including trade issues and the U.S. withdrawal from a nuclear deal with Iran. More